What's the Big Deal: City Lights (1931)

By ERIC D. SNIDER, FILM.COM

Updated 10:00 pm, Monday, February 15, 2010

Charlie Chaplin's signature character, the gentlemanly vagabond known as the Little Tramp, appeared in numerous short films in the 1910s, followed by several features in the '20s and '30s. The Tramp was insanely popular, becoming one of the most recognized fictional characters in the world, perhaps the most recognized until Mickey Mouse -- who Walt Disney said was partially inspired by the Tramp -- came along. Among the character's most beloved films was City Lights, still considered one of the finest movies of the silent era. But is it still funny? Was it even funny then? What's the big deal? Let's put on our big shoes, derby hats, and fake mustaches and consider.

The praise: In 1949, film critic James Agee called the final scene of City Lights "the greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid." Coming in 69th among all movies, it's the highest-ranked silent film by Internet Movie Database users. The American Film Institutenamed it the #1 best romantic comedy of all time, the 38th best comedy, and 11th best film of any genre (the highest comedy on the list). The British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine's first survey of film critics, in 1952, put City Lights as the second greatest film of all time (behind Bicycle Thieves). Orson Welles called it his favorite movie, and Stanley Kubrick had it in his top five.

The context: The advent of sound in motion pictures caused a general upheaval in Hollywood, as many performers who had honed their craft in the silent era -- or who had annoying voices -- wondered if their talents would survive the transition. But few had more to lose than Charlie Chaplin. Since his film debut in 1914, Chaplin, aided by his trademark Little Tramp character, had become the biggest movie star in the world. His Gold Rush (1925) and The Circus (1928) were among the top 10 highest-grossing movies of the silent era. He co-founded the United Artists film studio and exercised almost complete control over his own films, writing, directing, producing, editing, and starring in them, in addition to composing the musical scores. His personal life was tabloid fodder; one biographer says his romance with the much younger Lita Grey -- he was 35 when they became involved; she was 16 -- was the inspiration for Vladimir Navokov's novel Lolita. And Chaplin was extremely rich: his and Grey's divorce, in 1927, set a record with its $825,000 settlement, plus a million bucks in legal fees.

But even the biggest movie star in the world is not invincible. When The Jazz Singer introduced mass audiences to the wonders of talking pictures in October 1927, the days of the silent film quickly became numbered, but Chaplin had no interest in converting. He told Motion Picture Magazine in 1929 that the talkies were "spoiling the oldest art in the world -- the art of pantomime. They are ruining the great beauty of silence."

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It wasn't just that Chaplin was old-school or stubborn, though both were true. It was that he knew caving in to the changing times and letting the Little Tramp's voice be heard -- even if it's what audiences claimed they wanted -- would be an artistic disaster. The character was too closely associated with pantomime. Changing him so fundamentally would be like making Hannibal Lecter into a vegetarian.

Chaplin's concession was to make films like City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936), which are essentially silent films but have musical scores and sound effects. They even include some buzzy "talking" from a few minor characters (similar to the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons) -- but not from the Little Tramp himself. (We do hear the Tramp's voice at the end of Modern Times, but it's in a song sung completely in gibberish, preserving the character's mystique.)

City Lights began production as a straightforward silent film in 1928, when it was still uncertain whether talkies were a permanent game-changer or a passing fad. (The majority of feature-length films in 1927 and 1928 were still silent.) But Hollywood's quick embracing of the new technology -- aided by the exhibitors' willingness to install sound systems in their theaters -- put the handwriting on the wall, and Chaplin actually halted production on City Lights so he could figure out what to do. Production resumed -- and then the stock market crashed, in October 1929, making the film an even bigger gamble.

The longer it took to finish the movie, Chaplin feared, the more archaic it was going to seem when people saw it. But speed was never one of Chaplin's strong points. He was a notorious perfectionist, frequently shooting scenes dozens and dozens of times before being satisfied (a terrible burden on the actors, until you remember that he was one of them). He fired actress Virginia Cherrill midway through production and started re-shooting her scenes with Georgia Hale, his Gold Rush co-star, before concluding that this was too expensive, even by his standards, and bringing Cherrill back to finish. All of this meant City Lights, like most of Chaplin's movies, took a long time to film.

By the time it opened, in January 1931, there was every chance that audiences would consider it a dinosaur, an embarrassing effort by a powerful star to cling to the past, like Bill Cosby's Fat Albert movie. But instead, audiences and critics alike loved City Lights. Now in the throes of the Great Depression, people may have responded to something that reminded them of the Roaring '20s, not to mention the film's now-timely themes of class distinctions and poverty. It became one of Chaplin's biggest box-office successes and bought him a few more years of superstardom.

The movie: An unnamed Little Tramp meets two new friends. One is a millionaire who likes to get drunk and paint the town red with his new Tramp pal. (When he's sober, he doesn't remember who the Tramp is.) The other is a beautiful blind girl who sells flowers on the street and with whom the Tramp is smitten. He tries to help her. It gets kind of sweet.

What it influenced:Woody Allen has said that the last scene in his Manhattan was inspired by the last scene in City Lights. The 1992 Al Pacino film Scent of a Woman has a main character who is blind and, as an homage, uses bits of Chaplin's City Lights musical score.

We expect successful movies to inspire imitators, but the popularity of City Lights didn't encourage other directors to keep making non-talkies. It seemed to be understood that this was an exception, that from now on only Chaplin could get away with silence, and maybe not even him, not for long.

The enduring legacy of City Lights is summarized by Roger Ebert: "If only one of Charles Chaplin's films could be preserved, City Lights would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius. It contains the slapstick, the pathos, the pantomime, the effortless physical coordination, the melodrama, the bawdiness, the grace, and, of course, the Little Tramp." Many films are funny; many films are touching; City Lights is both, and to such a degree that the combination has rarely been duplicated. Chaplin cited it as his personal favorite among all his films, which should count for something.

What to look for: The opening titles call it "a comedy romance in pantomime," yet it seems like a long time before the "romance" element is established. Chaplin liked to start production on his films with only a handful of sketch ideas and let the story emerge gradually (another reason the films took forever to make). Some scenes appear to have been included not because they advance the plot but because they're funny as freestanding comedy sketches. Don't fret. Just enjoy it, and wait for it all to come together.

Note also that Chaplin was beloved and funny even though he was a mime. Mimes weren't universally loathed in those days. Clowns either, apparently. My, how the times have changed.

The first scene makes it clear what Chaplin thinks of "talking pictures": the speech of the pretentious man at the unveiling of a monument is conveyed with a grating kazoo-like sound. Chaplin seems to be saying, "You want movies that talk? Here's what talking sounds like to me."

Chaplin was adamant about the characters not speaking, but that didn't mean he couldn't use the soundtrack for comic effect. There's a great bit where the Tramp accidentally swallows a whistle and thereafter can't stop emitting whistle sounds. A sequence at a boxing match uses the bell for a gag that wouldn't have worked if the cinema audience couldn't actually hear the sound of it. Chaplin, who had perfected his pantomime art in live theater -- where sound WAS an option -- was only opposed to sound when the joke didn't need it.

As a director and editor, Chaplin's style was to avoid unnecessary cutting and simply let a scene play out in front of the camera. That's how it works on the vaudeville stage, after all -- and besides, cutting to a different angle can ruin a joke by interrupting its rhythm. So you'll notice long, unbroken takes containing an astounding amount of physical comedy that must have required weeks of rehearsal and involved numerous outtakes. The boxing sequence is one of the most amazing, with Chaplin, a referee, and a prizefighter, all moving around the ring in an expertly choreographed, flawlessly executed comic ballet. It's the same "nothing up my sleeve" philosophy as in many of Fred Astaire's dance movies: If you're going to go to the trouble of learning these complicated steps, you might as well let the audience see how good you are at doing them.

An unsung hero in the film is Harry Myers, the actor who plays the eccentric millionaire. Though this is the only time he ever worked with Chaplin, he was a veteran of silent films, and his expertise is clear. In the scenes of him and Chaplin together, Chaplin's the one getting the laughs, but Myers' work is just as crucial in making the gags work. Again, most of these routines are carried out right before our eyes, with minimal cutting: Chaplin and Myers had to know exactly what they were doing for it to work.

This movie also contains a joke about elephant poop. Seriously, elephant poop. In a 1931 movie. This impresses me.

Finally, just as a point of interest, Florence Lee, who plays the flower girl's grandmother, was born in 1858. I think it's amazing to see film footage of someone old enough to remember the Civil War.

What's the big deal: While everyone else in Hollywood had either embraced talking pictures, resigned themselves to their inevitability, or given up, Chaplin alone held out. Think about that: He was the only one with enough clout to even make a silent film in 1931, let alone pull it off so gracefully. Chaplin was wrong about sound ruining cinema, but he was right that it would have ruined the Little Tramp. He knew that no matter how unfashionable silent films became, they were the only genre in which this character would work. If it meant he couldn't make films with this character anymore, so be it. He never compromised his vision or his commitment to the craft of comedy. City Lights, therefore, wasn't just a hilarious and poignant romantic comedy. It was also a bold stand against change-for-the-sake-of-change, a firm declaration of artistic principle that marked Chaplin's career to the end.

Further reading: If you don't already know how the movie ends, it really is lovely to let it sneak up on you. So don't read these until you've seen it.

DeWitt Bodeen's essay at Film Reference is enjoyable to read and has a lengthy bibliography if you want to know more about Chaplin and this film.

Roger Ebert's essay has some valuable insights, including an account of seeing the film with Chaplin in attendance.

You may enjoy Sid Silverman's 1931 review of the film for Variety. He likes the movie but guesses its box office will probably fall off after a dynamic opening week.